180mm Sonnar + ??mm tube for close up portraits?

[antipov]

Hello,

 

I am thinking about buying a portrait lens, 4.0/180mm Sonnar and wonder which

macro tube I will need for close up portraits, I want to get something like this:

 

http://www.stephanvanfleteren.com/gallery_portraits/images/01012.jpg

 

And the second question is how much vignetting on the focusing screen I will get

using this lens on old 500c or (I hope to buy soon) 500cm body? Both of them

don't have that Gliding Mirror system, so there is supposed to be some cut off on

top of the image. Is it completely cut off, or just darker than the rest of the picture?

 

Dmitry.

[jenny_jaques]

"how much vignetting"? Almost a cm. and it will be solid black. But just learn to live with it. It's OK. However, if you use a Proxar in stead of an extension ring, there is no cut off at all, nor is there need for exposure compensation.

 

The close-up crop you're looking for could be achieved with anything from 120mm and longer. A popular combination for decades was the 250mm with 21mm extension ring, providing a fairly good distance range, from the tight crop in the example you've shown, to this portrait by a friend, who told me he used that lens/extension combination at maximum distance, and shut down for maximum depth of focus. http://askerbk.com/Medlem%20Olav%20H.html

 

For the very selective focus, of course the 180 f4 may be slightly better than the 250mm at maximum aperture f5.6. But even a really good 250mm C will be a whole lot cheaper than the 180mm CF and later.

 

Cheers, Jenny

[davidfink_photography]

Hi Dmitry,

 

Here's a recent portrait example with the Sonnar 180 and a 21mm tube (on a 500c/m):

 

 

It's not quite as close a crop as you are wanting, but then I wasn't at closest focus distance.

 

As far as the vignetting, I agree with Jenny.....nothing to worry too much about.

 

The 180 is a superb lens. Good luck.

[antipov]

Thanks for your answer Jenny,

 

I don't think I'll use Proxar, because it softens the picture pretty much as every close-up filter.

I want to buy a 180mm lens, because 250mm seems to me a little too long, and dark, I want to shoot sometimes handheld and 4.0 aperture would be of great help.

Also I don't want to buy a C lens, because each of them is at least 25 years old, and I won't be able to buy a lens after testing it, i. e. I will be ordering it online from ebay/keh because I live in Israel.

 

I'm interested which extension tube would give me that tight crop or even tighter with 180mm lens.

[antipov]

Hello David,

 

Unfortunately I can't view this picture, it appears to be in a friends-only part of your flickr. I'd really appreciate it if you posted a picture somewhere I could see it. Thanks.

 

May be you have an example of portrait on the closest focus distance with that 21 tube?

[davidfink_photography]

Sorry Dmitry,

 

Can you view it like this?

 

 

Unfortunately, I don't have anything uploaded yet at closest distance with the 21mm tube. But I'll try to do something soon for you, maybe by the end of this week.

 

Best wishes.

[graham_mitchell]

The link works if you remove some of the end:

[antipov]

Thank you, David and Graham,

 

Now I see the picture.

I would really appreciate it, David!

[q.g._de_bakker]

The 180 mm, without extra tube, has a minimum field of view of about 37 cm (with a 0.6 stop light loss).<br>The lens itself has about 27 mm of extension built-in (focusing mount) so a good tube to have with this lens would be slightly shorter: the old 21 mm tube. This combination reduces the minimum field of view to about 21 cm wide (losing 0.9 stops).<br>If that is not close enough, the 32 mm tube will reduce it even further to approximately 17 cm (losing 1.1 stops).<br><br>

[davidfink_photography]

Hi Dmitry,

 

I did a quick sample for you today, with the Sonnar 180mm @ f/5.6, with a 21mm extension tube. This is approximately (but not quite) at closest focus distance.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7256802

 

Hope that helps,

 

David

[Ed_Ingold]

This question and related questions comes up frequently. That's why you are admonished to use the search function.

 

Review the Hasselblad white paper (http://www.hasselbladusa.com/media/b257f2b0-cd24-497b-b21f-47dcf6ee295a-Closeup.pdf) which will tell you nearly everything you need to know (for your next question too).

 

Focusing distance is not a very useful parameter. Hasselblad organizes its tables by the object size, which allows you to choose the correct lens and extension tube at a glance.

[antipov]

Thank you very much, David, that really helped!